place!"

"This is the bulletin board, where I put up notices about books that
interest me. Here's a card I've just been writing."

Roger drew from his pocket a square of cardboard and affixed it to the
board with a thumbtack. Titania read:

THE BOOK THAT SHOULD HAVE PREVENTED THE WAR

Now that the fighting is over is a good time to read Thomas Hardy's The
Dynasts. I don't want to sell it, because it is one of the greatest
treasures I own. But if any one will guarantee to read all three
volumes, and let them sink into his mind, I'm willing to lend them.

If enough thoughtful Germans had read The Dynasts before July, 1914,
there would have been no war.

If every delegate to the Peace Conference could be made to read it
before the sessions begin, there will be no more wars.

R. MIFFLIN.

"Dear me," said Titania, "Is it so good as all that? Perhaps I'd
better read it."

"It is so good that if I knew any way of doing so I'd insist on Mr.
Wilson reading it on his voyage to France. I wish I could get it onto
his ship. My, what a book! It makes one positively ill with pity and
terror. Sometimes I wake up at night and look out of the window and
imagine I hear Hardy laughing. I get him a little mixed up with the
Deity, I fear. But he's a bit too hard for you to tackle."

Titania was puzzled, and said nothing. But her busy mind made a note
of its own: Hardy, hard to read, makes one ill, try it.

"What did you think of the books I put in your room?" said Roger. He
had vowed to wait until she made some comment unsolicited, but he could
not restrain himself.

"In my room?" she said. "Why, I'm sorry, I never noticed them!"

Chapter IV

The Disappearing Volume

"Well, my dear," said Roger after supper that evening, "I think perhaps
we had better introduce Miss Titania to our custom of reading aloud."

"Perhaps it would bore her?" said Helen. "You know it isn't everybody
that likes being read to."

"Oh, I should love it!" exclaimed Titania. "I don't think anybody ever
read to me, that is not since I was a child."

"Suppose we leave you to look after the shop," said Helen to Roger, in
a teasing mood, "and I'll take Titania out to the movies. I think
Tarzan is still running."

Whatever private impulses Miss Chapman may have felt, she saw by the
bookseller's downcast face that a visit to Tarzan would break his
heart, and she was prompt to discl